Chapter 20

Driving along this highway
All these cars and up on the sidewalk

- Ants Marching (Dave Matthews Band)

=/\=

"How do ya'll know that the USS Saint Eligius is where Otra is?" Tom asked.

"During the change, she managed to contact Levi," Carmen replied.

"He is not necessarily the most reliable reporter," Boris pointed out.

"True, but right now, this is the only lead we've got."

"How do you propose to do this?" Tom asked, "I don't see them just handing over Otra if we barge in."

"Perhaps we'll simply talk to them," Carmen said, "and poke around a bit."

"That's not much of a plan," Boris said.

"It's my first assault," Carmen said, "so kindly cut me a little slack, all right?"

=/\=

Brother Simon went to the rectory to get a robe for Otra, and saw Milton Walker in there with two other monks, but their faces were hidden as their hoods were on – or, rather, back on, for these were the two temporal operatives for the Perfectionists – Helen Walker and Donald Oliver.

"Brother Milton," Simon said, "can you assist me in getting the current vintage ready for shipment?"

"A moment," Milton responded, "I need to take Brother, uh, Hector, here, to the Transporter. He is based on one of the planetary monasteries. Then I shall assist you."

He shepherded Helen out and she kept her head down. Once they were gone, Simon asked Donald, "Are you new here?"

"Uh, yeah, sure."

"The life here is harsh but very rewarding. I take it Brother Hector brought you from one of the planetary monasteries?"

"Uh, yes."

"Not everyone can adapt well to a monastery that's on a ship. Which planetary monastery are you from, Brother – uh?"

"Donald," he said, and thought quickly, "uh I'm from the monastery on Berren Five."

"I didn't know we had one there."

Donald Oliver glanced around a little nervously and wondered why he was stuck making small talk with an overly chatty monk.

=/\=

"Wanna talk about it?" it was Polly. She fell in step with Rick.

"Um, not really."

"You probably should talk about it," she said, "my experience is that people who witness somewhat traumatic events, and then think they don't want to talk about it, are often the people who need the most to talk about it."

"Is this a professional inquiry?"

"Only in the sense that I'm a psychology professional," Polly said, "but, well, Carmen isn't asking me to do this, or anything. You just, to me, you seem troubled. Oklahoma city was that bad?"

"It wasn't that," he said.

She looked at him intently, trying to probe his features for clues. "It's … somebody touched you."

"I touch lots of women."

"No doubt. But this one touched you back – and I don't mean in a sexual sense," she said, "Richard, you're, well, you're affected."

"Talk to Grant or Beauchaine if you wanna see affected," he said, "me, I'm going to my office." He was gone before she could protest too much.

=/\=

There was a trill in Milton's ear. "A shuttle? From the Temporal Integrity Commission? Dammit."

"What's going on?" Helen asked quietly. They were making their way to the ship's Transporter as quickly as possible but were also trying not to arouse any suspicion.

"Trouble," he said, "get to Callisto, to your place. I'll get Don there as well."

"Y'all mean I have to put him up?" she whined, and then realized she needed to keep her voice down, "C'mon," she whispered.

"It won't be for long," Milton whispered, "we'll find a new place. But we can no longer use the Saint Eligius."

=/\=

Helen just didn't want Donald to cramp her style. She was her Daddy's little girl all right, but also her own person. And she didn't want to be stuck babysitting another operative.

She had gone to medical school at the urging insistence of her father, who was obsessed with, somehow, having the family benefit humanity in a really big way. Milton wanted big gestures. A cure for Irumodic Syndrome would have done the trick. But that was when he had still been thinking small.

So he had pushed his only child into medicine, even though she had no real feel for it. It was a complicated intellectual puzzle, to be sure, but it also wasn't what she really wanted. And so she had gone into teaching Medical History at the Dione Medical School.

She was a decent professor, but her students – at least, the male ones – enjoyed the view of her back as she projected type onto the main viewing screen a lot more than her actual lectures.

A few years previously, her father had fallen in with a group who proposed to really perform some big gestures for humanity. If the past could only be jiggered and changed, the present would shine, and the future would be even brighter!

He had risen through the ranks to eventually becoming the Perfectionist movement's leader, although he did not understand much about temporal alternatives at all. He was well aware that there could be negative consequences arising from positive acts, but he also knew, at least insofar as 3110 was concerned, how the movie was going to turn out.

All's well that ends well.

It was a motto that should have been tattooed onto the inside of his eyelids.

When the Temporal Integrity Commission put out a call for resumes in 3109, he was delighted that they were looking for a traveling doctor, and immediately pulled some strings to assure that Helen and her professional colleague, Marisol Castillo, were among those considered. Because Marisol already had an in with the Commission, as Boris Yarin's chippie on the side, it was decided to fake Helen's death and get Marisol installed.

All had gone according to plan. Helen began to travel for the Perfectionists, and put her thumb on the scale in 1959 Clear Lake and other places and times. It became obvious that a male operative was needed, and so Anthony Parker was hired, but he proven to be too morally squeamish. And so a third operative was brought in, to take care of Parker.

That was Donald Oliver. As Helen had said, he performed all manner of odd jobs. He had photographed Helen in 1968 Bratislava – a few compromising blackmail photographs. He had refueled the Lynyrd Skynyrd plane in 1977. He had bribed the CEO of a small company called Datapoint to not release the first LAN – and that would have eventually led to the beginning of the Internet.

He had been a busy guy. But he bored Helen. Shop talk was the last thing she needed, she felt.

Milton got her into the ship's Transporter room. "I'll handle this, Brother Jerome."

"Yes, Brother," Jerome departed and it was just Milton and Helen in the Transporter room.

"Remember: stay on Callisto," he warned her, "I, well, perhaps all of us, may have to hide a bit. Even if they don't locate Otra, we will have some things to explain."

"Then come with me, Daddy."

"Good idea," he said, and set the Transporter on automatic, and added three more sets of coordinates to it – to Berren Five, to Dawitan and to Kronos – so that whoever went looking for him would have to split focus and look in three other places in addition to Callisto.

=/\=

People in every direction
No words exchanged,
No time to exchange when

- Ants Marching (Dave Matthews Band)